


Dates

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Blind Date, Coffee, Comedy, Drinking, Driving, F/F, First Dates, Fluff and Humor, Happy, Happy Ending, Humor, Love, Love at First Sight, Restaurants, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Fluff, Some Humor, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25989643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: Joohyun sets the many-times heartbroken Seulgi up on a date with one of her dressmaking clients in a Italian-style restaurant in the city with the sole purpose of wanting to see Seulgi happy and have the legitimate excuse to look at wedding dress sewing patterns in VOGUE
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kang Seulgi, Kang Seulgi/Park Sooyoung | Joy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Dates

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite a sweet, endearing, light-hearted work. I do hope you enjoy it, for I had a wonderful time writing it :)

"Do you miss it?" Joohyun asked her friend Seulgi. They were sitting on the mildly-crumbling sandstone steps of Seulgi's multi-level garden, it descending down a slope to a line of oak trees by the wooden back fence, the property consisting of a 19th Century cottage that was getting renovated bit by bit on top of work that had already been done by the previous owners until they ran out of money and the property was bought at auction for firesale price with, then, thankfully, not a huge mortgage on low interest rates. The property was beautiful. No one had had enough intelligence to appreciate how much the land it was built on was worth; at the time of the auction eighteen months ago, all the grass was overgrown, ivy and even some gorse was absolutely everywhere, and, some of the trees had fallen down. It looked like a bomb sight, but, with the grass mown, flowers revived, trees cleaned up, gorse and thistles gone, and, the ivy trimmed down to a respectably pretty condition, the property looked like a dream. Joohyun had never, ever thought that Seulgi would consider living outside the city, a good thirty miles outside of Seoul, but, she ended up doing so. Seulgi seemed happy, and, at the end of the day, that was all that mattered, but, initially, for Joohyun, it was as thought someone had dropped a bomb. Everything had blown up.

"Miss what?" Seulgi quipped, holding her glass of port in her hands and pouring a fresh glass of wine for Joohyun, who had made one glass last an hour and a quart.

"Being with someone." Joohyun implored. Seulgi glanced sidelong at her. Joohyun didn't usually bring up subjects like this. Something must have happened with her, Seulgi thought to herself. 

"...yeah." Seulgi murmured after a long while. She took a sip of her drink. "Yeah, I do." Her lips pursed together slightly for a moment as the drop of alcohol slipt into a crack in her lip when her lips had dried out and had chapped slightly. Seulgi ran her tongue over it, and, away the sting went instantly. "But it's something you get used too...even though it's always in the back of your mind, I think." Seulgi ran the nail of her thumb over her eyebrow and her right cheek gently, feeling a itch coming in those two places. "It can pop out sometimes, no reason at all...walk down the street and you see a happy couple with a baby in a pram, or, just people together, smiling, happy, content. And you just...a little bit more dies inside you." Seulgi shrugged. "It's so easy for them to have all of those things, and, yet, for me...it's so bloody hard."

Joohyun nodded. "Would you want to try again?" She asked Seulgi.

Suelgi shifted her shoulders, trying to not get stiff from where she and Joohyun were on the steps in the back garden. "It's so hard just to find someone that I could like and be happy with - just on the surface of things - and, then...it always goes bad. It's not meant to be this difficult, but, with me, nothing ever goes right." 

Her friend nodded. "I get that, but, would you try again for me?" Joohyun remarked. "I think I know someone, and, just hear me out, ok?"

"Oh, god, what happened?" Seulgi turned her head to the side.

"You know I like your music, right?" Joohyun said. "Well, that cover you did - just singing around the kitchen - that chris issac song, right? I was listening to it right as i was doing my sewing in my studios, and, one of my girls - one of my clients - came in and her mouth just dropped open." Joohyun smiled and tried to soothe Suelgi as Seulgi's blood pressure visibly shot through the roof. Joohyun could sort of understand; her voice just completely raw and definitely un-even and murmured in some places playing in the end of a upmarket dressmakers. "She thought it was incredible," Joohyun continued. "And, because she's been buying off me for a while, I know her a bit, and, well...set the two of you up." The last five words were a mumble, hidden by Joohyun by taking a drink of her wine.

Seulgi considered the other woman. "Is she pretty?" Seulgi asked.

"Very." Joohyun answered.

"Is she thin?" 

"Yes, but not anorexic." 

"Facial piercings?" Seulgi wasn't a fan of piercings in places other than ears, and, she didn't like them in women, because, only rarely did they suit the person.

"None." Joohyun shook her head.

"Pink hair? Blue hair? Anything like that?" Seulgi frowned slightly.

"No." Joohyun smiled a bit. She knew Seulgi liked the natural woman.

"Nice clothes?" Seulgi checked. In other words, does she have enough money and therefore a sense of sophistication to not wear track-suits with food stains on them.

"Of course! They're all made by me!" Joohyun exclaimed.

"Nice shoes?"

"Yes, I've found myself quite jealous." Joohyun admitted, thinking of a few pairs of her clients high heels that Joohyun would never pick out in a shop, but, on her, looked very good.

"Personality where she'd turn?" Seulgi asked. Joohyun felt a pang of sympathy for Seulgi. That had been a large case with her; all her previous girlfriends had been nice for the first month - barely - before becoming the reason precisely people thought all lesbian, pansexual, transgender, bisexual, and gay people were cunts.

"Nope, not as far as I can tell." Joohyun said.

Seulgi nodded. She trusted Joohyun's judgement. "Ok, we'll give it a go then." 

"It's tonight." Joohyun dead-panned.

"What?!" Seulgi shrieked.

"Relax, it's only half-four now." Joohyun checked the tan-leather strapped watch with the flowers inked in minute detail on the cream-toned clock-face that her Father had bought her from a Danish jeweler's for her twenty-first birthday.

"Yeah, half-four and I've had half a box of port!" Seulgi reached down the mildly crumbling sandstone steps and picked up the box-case of port, her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised.

Joohyun looked at her friend and burst out laughing. "Oh, yeah, this might be a problem." She conceded.

"Yeah, you don't fucking reckon?!" Seulgi hollered blatantly as she rushed inside, her bare feet catching green across the lawn as she jogged along. Joohyun hoped all the while Seulgi didn't accidentally step on a thistle; Joohyun herself had done that once, and, it had been agony. 

"Wait, you're not going to make yourself throw up all the port are you?" Joohyun called after her.

"No!" Seulgi threw open her French doors and then opened all the windows of the home that looked over the garden, all multi-paned with their timber panels painted white or a light lemon-yellow in tone. "I'm going to scull as much water and tea as I can and see if I can piss it out of my system!"

Joohyun nearly wet herself laughing, falling back against the midlly crumbling sandstone steps of Suelgi's back garden as, even from the garden, she could hear the urgent rush of clattering china and the kettle been put on the boil.

"Fuck, I've got to get into the city too!" Seulgi shouted from inside her cottage. "When's this fucking date?!"

"Eight 'o' clock." Joohyun cupped her hands around her mouth as she answered.

"Fucking christ!" A couple of moments later, Seulgi stuck her head back through the window over-looking the sink in the kitchen. "I'll have your guts you silly bitch!" She shrieked.

Joohyun raised her glass of wine in a toast with a smile.

"Just get your lipstick, lacy knickers, and a nice dress on and we'll be quite alright!" She called out.

Despite the initial panic, there was enough time for Seulgi to jump in the bath, and, then, Joohyun help her do her hair.

"Trust me, she isn't like the others." Joohyun sprayed some hairspray into Seulgi's hair before fluffing it up a bit with a brush. Joohyun wanted to have Seulgi's hair in a centre part with a half-up, half-down beehive at the back, but, the beehive was going to be more genuinely 50's style, nothing like the infamous do of Amy Winehouse. "It'll look lovely, trust me, you won't really notice it unless you have a side view. I do a beautiful job, you know this." Joohyun had managed to get Seulgi to have some faith in her. "She's not ignorant, selfish, rude, narssistic, say-one-thing-and-mean-another. Plus, she likes a measure of you, anyway."

Out of Seulgi's wardrobe, Joohyun brought out Seulgi's tan-leather boots, denim jeans, a white button-up shirt, belt, and her French-style canvas trench-coat. "Natural make-up." Joohyun worked in Seulgi's bedroom like her studio with her models and her clients. "Not the ulzzang-face; black eyeliner, brows, lipstick, make your cheekbones step out."

Ten minutes before eight 'o' clock, Joohyun pulled up just down the street from the restaurant where Seulgi was having her date. It was a Italian themed place, and, by this time of night, they weren't serving pasta so much as they were coffee, tea, tiramasu, fruit-cake and wafers according to Seulgi.

"Oh, thank God, the smell of pasta makes me want to hurl."

"And, no dumb pop songs; they've got some very nice Scandinavian travellers in there who play the instrumental for songs - everywhere from Coldplay to Cigarettes After Sex to Michael Buble if it's Winter-time."

Seulgi smiled. "Even if it doesn't work out with her, it's been a nice day for the two of us." She patted her hair. She actually really liked what Joohyun had done to it. "Thank you."

"Can't have you single forever, and, besides, I want to make your wedding dress."

"And not charge me a fortune?"

"No, I'll send the bill to your Dad."

They laughed.

"Ok, bye-bye, go away now, have fun." Joohyun shooed her hands at Seulgi.

"Wait, wait." Seulgi grabbed Joohyun's wrist. "What's my date's name and what am I doing if you disappear in the car?"

"Well, I thought that as you will really like her, you'll end up at her place, or, worst case scenario, you just call me and you can stay at my place." Joohyun reached past Seulgi and opened her door for her. "And your date's name is Sooyoung."

Sooyoung, the name echoed over in Seulgi's head as she climbed out of Joohyun's car, and, waved to her as Joohyun drove away, Joohyun beeping her horn in her last recognition. 

Seulgi's hands slipt into the pockets of her jeans, and, as she pushed open the door to the cafe, the sound of instrumental compositional music as Joohyun had described played in the background, the sounds of clinking china and low, murming chatter filled up the air in the Ethnically-Italian style restaurant with it's dark spaces lit by kerosene lamps and polished dark floorboards with it's coffee lounges, potted ferns, sixteen-foot high ceilings, wallpaper, stained-glass ceiling lights, and, antique furniture with brass doorknobs that went off to private dining spaces.

"Uh, hello...sorry." Seulgi chuckled softly, having been approached by the maitre'd as she lingered in the entrance hall. "A friend set me up on a blind date, I just know that the person I'm meeting is called Sooyoung. I'm sorry for causing a bother."

"Oh, not at all." The maitre'd smiled charmingly. He was a tall and handsome middle-aged men with greying hair and a shaven face. "We did have a Park Sooyoung come in just a few minutes ago; she said to watch out or a...may I ask your name, Miss?"

"Kang Seulgi." Seulgi answered.

The older man beamed. "Excellent, then. You're companion is quite excited to meet you, I do think. This way, Miss Kang." He held out a hand and guided Seulgi through the Art-Deco designed restaurant until a set o chesterfield sofas by a open fireplace, the flames dancing up in the hearth prettily, giving a pleasant woodsmoke and spice scent throughout the interior architecture without choking the lungs of any patron. 

"I'll send coffee." The maitre'd gracefully nodded his head and left the two of them, letting the two young women take in the first sights of the other.

Seulgi's eyes had widened and a open smile had come onto her face at the sight of Sooyoung, and, it appeared much the same with Sooyoung.

Sooyoung was dressed in a black mini-dress with a dark-green velvet coat with roll-cuff sleeves and no lapels, and black tights with Doc Marten boots. She had on red lipstick but not much else make-up wise. But, even without all that, she was beautiful. Very beautiful. Seulgi couldn't find or think of any other way to explain it.

It simply just was.

"Hello." Seulgi sat down onto the couch next to Sooyoung, and, Sooyoung managed the same reply. Somewhat humorously, they shook hands.

"You look lovely." Seulgi told Sooyoung.

"It's not what I usually would have worn, if I'm honest." She admitted. "But I got told you like rock music, so..." She gestured downwardly. Seulgi smiled.

"I think you look lovely." Seulgi said. 

"Joohyun did your hair, right?"

"Yes, she did."

They both smiled. 

"What do you do?"

"Lots of things; I do modelling quite a lot, but, I always do private childcare quite a lot. I'm a hired Nanny for one family. I have my own apartment but I usually stay with them in their house; I don't have anything to come home to except a change of bed for the weekends." Sooyoung smiled. "What about you?"

"Self-employed artist; photography, painting, sculpting, music production and composition. I've mastered many things, gives me a tidy income." Seulgi nodded. "I can imagine you with babies."

Sooyoung beamed. "I love them. Even with the nappies. Most people get revolted by the nappies but I don't mind them becuase the little ones are so cute."

For two and a half hours, they talked, and, then, Sooyoung invited Seulgi home to her apartment. They put on the television in Sooyoung's tidy and prettily furnished home, and, Seulgi jumped to watch a film she saw when Sooyoung was going through the channels.

"What is it about?" Sooyoung asked on Seulgi's enthusiasm for "My Cousin Rachel" which was only just beginning.

"It's about a young man who was orphaned and then raised by his cousin; his cousin in later years travels, meets a very beautiful woman, and, then, stays in her home country of Italy as his health begins to ail even though he's not very old. When he dies, there's all matters like wills and the struggle of grief; the woman the cousin married arrives, and, the young man falls in love with her, but, there's always these underlying matters which come out - is she just silly or is she purposely taking all of his money, using him, and did she kill his beloved cousin and the man who raised him to take his money to be with a lover she has tucked away somewhere in Italy? My explanation of it isn't the best, but, it's a truly brilliant film."

It was nearly half-past Midnight when the film ended, but, Seulgi only felt a little bit tired. 

"Do you want to sleep together?" Sooyoung asked. Over the course of the film, the two of them had got in closer to each other, not quite touching but close enough to have a intimate form of presence. The two of them really liked each other; Sooyoung seemed delighted at how interested Seulgi was in her, and, Seulgi was utterly captivated by Sooyoung's beauty, and, every word that came out of her mouth. Seulgi gazed over intently at Sooyoung, and, gently, tucked a piece of her long black hair behind her ear before pulling it loose again and letting it slip between her fingers by the panel of Sooyoung's cheekbone.

"If you like..." Seulgi said, her fingertips tracing over Sooyoung's cheekbone down to her jaw and then over his chin.

"Oh! Hang on, sorry, no, I - oh!" Sooyoung squeaked before hiding her face in embarrassment. She looked out through her fingers at Seulgi before composing herself. "No, I just mean, it's getting really late and I don't have a spare room for you and I'm getting really tired..."

"Oh, I see, I'm sorry." Seulgi said. "You want to pack up, then?"

A few minutes later, Seulgi was laying in Sooyoung's bed in her jeans and her button-up shirt, and, she watched Sooyoung brush her teeth and wash her face, her black hair twisted up into a knot on the top of her head with a black band, Sooyoung wearing a grey singlet and pink-and-white pinstriped cotton shorts. Eventually, Sooyoung climbed into the bed beside Seulgi, nestled under the covers, her head on the pillow next to Seulgi's cushion grabbed from the sitting room.

"Goodnight." Sooyoung squeezed Seulgi's hand under the covers.

"Goodnight." Seulgi did the same.

Their hands stayed loosely entwined as they both went to sleep.


End file.
